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With the 2024 presidential election less than a month away, industry groups from national construction associations to major unions have thrown their support behind the country’s next president.
The two candidates are former President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election after losing his bid in 2020, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who took the torch from current President Joe Biden after he announced he would not seek re-election on July 21. The construction industry faces many issues, and both major party candidates have them publicize their political positions in several of them.
Here’s where industry groups are in the upcoming election, broken down by candidate:
Kamala Harris
Harris has garnered endorsements from some of the nation’s largest unions representing construction workers. These include the AFL-CIOthe International Brotherhood of Electrical Workersthe United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Carpenters of America i Construction Unions of North America.
Kamala Harris
The groups praised the Biden-Harris administration’s track record of helping unions, including efforts to create blue-collar jobs through the Jobs and Infrastructure Investments Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips & Science Law, which have pumped billions of dollars in construction projects throughout the country.
“The policies he has helped enact over the past four years, shoulder-to-shoulder with President Biden, are rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure and manufacturing sector, strengthening pipelines of opportunity for historically underrepresented communities, and reinvesting to the American middle class,” said Sean McGarvey, NABTU. president, in his July 25 press release announcing the union’s endorsement of Harris.
In addition, the unions pointed to that of the administration efforts to protect pension plans of millions of workers in industries throughout the country.
“From day one, Vice President Kamala Harris has been a true partner in leading the most pro-labor administration in history,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in the release the organization announcing its support for Harris.
donald trump
Associated Builders and Contractors, a national construction industry trade association representing more than 23,000 members, has supported Trump based in part on decisions made by current President Joe Biden that he called bad for business.
In a letter to the Trump campaign, ABC President and CEO Mike Bellaman and Buddy Henley, chairman of the organization’s board and owner of Gaithersburg, Md.-based Henley Construction Co., denounced the decision of the Biden administration in 2023 of mandate labor contracts of the project on federal and federally assisted projects costing $35 million or more.
The group claims the PLA policy prevents non-union workers and companies from working on federally funded projects. The lawyers say all companies can gain employment in federal jobsbut the policies tip the scales in favor of union builders.
Bellaman and Henley also said ABC would work with a Trump administration to provide small businesses in the construction industry with “tax certainty and fairness” and strengthen apprenticeship programs.
donald trump
“Your support of fair and open competition, job creation, small business and expanded workforce development initiatives during your first term helped ABC members grow their businesses, improve their workforce and create career-enhancing jobs,” Bellaman and Henley wrote in the letter. .
ABC also praised Trump’s signing of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017, which lowered the income tax and doubled the estate tax exemption, along with his veto pledge. the PRO Lawif it ever reaches your desktop.
Stay neutral
On the other hand, Associated General Contractors of America will not endorse any candidate. The trade association, along with its political action committee known as AGC PAC, does not endorse presidential candidates or contribute to presidential campaigns, said Brian Turmail, the association’s vice president of public and labor affairs.
“We are willing to work with whoever wins the White House and it has not been in the best interest of our members to take sides in presidential races,” Turmail told Construction Dive via email.
However, Turmail noted that AGC PAC has made contributions to presidential campaigns in the past, most recently to Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, which did not have an endorsement. Romney lost the race to then-President Barack Obama.
